Biography

The inventor was born on May 2 in 1843, in Colchester, Ontario, Canada. His parents were former slaves and had fled Kentucky for Canada through the underground railroad. He had eleven brothers and sisters.In 1868, Elijah McCoy married Ann Elizabeth Stewart who died four years later. A year later, Elijah married his second wife Mary Eleanora Delaney and They had no children. At the age of fifteen, Elijah McCoy served a mechanical engineering apprenticeship in Edinburgh, Scotland. However, the only job he found was that of a locomotive fireman and oiler for the Michigan Central Railroad. Because of his training, he was able to identify and solve the problems of engine lubrication and overheating. At that time, trains needed to periodically stop and be lubricated, to prevent overheating. Elijah McCoy developed a lubricator for steam engines that did not require the train to stop. His lubricator used steam pressure to pump oil wherever it was needed.Final YearsIn 1920, Elijah McCoy opened his own company called "the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company". But saddly, Elijah McCoy suffered in his later years, having a financial, mental, and physical breakdown. Elijah McCoy died on October 10, 1929 from senile dementia caused by hypertension.